By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in "The Glass Castle." Rosemary always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit.